NEW mum Sarah Harman and her husband James have had to rearrange their finances so she can afford to take a year off work to look after their eight-week-old daughter Matilda.

Sarah, 34, who works as a teacher, and James, 35, an architect, from Cobham, Surrey, have ­temporarily changed their mortgage to interest-only to reduce their monthly payments.

“We have a really big mortgage which makes life more difficult when one of us isn’t working,” says Sarah.

“I’m getting statutory maternity pay of £124.88 a week, but we’ve had to be very ­disciplined and cut down on what we spend.

“We go out less and have cancelled our subscription to a film club which has saved us about £15 a month. I’m also more careful about grocery ­shopping and use mysupermarket.co.uk to ­compare costs so we can cut our food bills.

“Luckily, I just qualified for the Health in ­Pregnancy Grant before it disappeared, but we will lose our child benefit in 2013 which will make life more difficult. It would be nice if there was more help for mums. You don’t realise how expensive it is to have children.”